Five Items to Add to Your Summer Bucket List

1. Cliff Jumping

Preferably somewhere safe… I found this place called The Offsetts. It’s an old quarry in southeast Missouri, Mine La Motte, to be specific. The entrance fee for swimming and cliff jumping is $10 per day. You can bring your own picnic style lunch and make a day out of it, so pretty good deal if you ask me. Click here for the link to their website for more details.

2. Celebrate St. Louis’s 250th Birthday

St. Louis turned 250 years old in 2014, so what better way to celebrate than with a three-part celebration: “Cakeway to the West.” All across the greater St. Louis area, there are 250 four-feet tall, two-tier birthday cakes  If you take a picture with each one, you get some sort of special prize. So far, I’ve found one three. One in front of Busch Stadium, at the grand basin at the bottom of Art Hill in Forest Park and one in front of The Muny. For a complete list of the cake locations, click here.

3. Juice Cleanse

Raw fruits and vegetables and a blender + three days of dedication to the cleanse. May as well try it. While not as extreme as detoxes or an extreme diet, it “cleans you out.” Only hard part is that you can only drink juice/smoothies and drink water for three days… Worth a try.

4. Become a Red Cross Certified Volunteer

You’ve heard of the Red Cross before, but they do more than just disaster relief and putting on blood drives. The are a volunteer-based organization whose mission is to prevent and relieve suffering through disaster relief, supporting military families, life saving blood, providing health and safety services and international services. There is an online application to become a volunteer. Once you submit your application, you must take an orientation course. You can do this at your local Red Cross chapter, or you can do this online. The online course only takes an hour so if you’re busy this summer, I’d recommend this. Click here to get started

5. Shakespeare Festival St. Louis

If you’re looking for an enchanting evening in Forest Park full of Shakespearian drama then check out Shakespeare Festival St. Louis. A tradition since 2001, the festival has brought in productions such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet, to name a few. This year’s plays feature Henry IV and Henry V, which alternate every night, and runs until June 15. For a complete schedule click here for a complete schedule.  Green Show starts at 6:30 and the MainStage performance starts at 8 pm. If you’re trying to catch both shows back to back, two Saturdays in June, the 7 and the 14 are your double feature days. Although the show is free, try and get there early. As Shakespeare himself once said, “better three hours too early than a minute too late.”

Note: If you have children, it may be best to call a babysitter for the night. The website warns viewers of graphic violence in the play

 

Taveras Goes Back To Memphis

The Cardinals are back in St. Louis for a ten-game home stand, and while I couldn’t be happier about being able to attend games in the Lou again, I was also saddened by the news that just came out.  While at work today, I got a notification from MLB reading, “Cardinals activate 1B Matt Adams (left calf strain) from the 15-day DL and option Taveras to Triple-A.” After reading the story, I can only say that I know this can’t be the last we see of Taveras in the major leagues.

Tonight the Cardinals will take on the 35-30 Washington Nationals. The lineup for the game is as follows:

1. Carpenter, 3B
2. Wong, 2B
3. Holliday, LF
4. Craig, RF
5. Molina, C
6. Adams, 1B
7. Peralta, SS
8. Jay, CF
9. Lynn, P

Allen Craig will move back to right field, and after 15 days on the disabled list, Adams will get his spot back at first. This moves Oscar Taveras back to Memphis AAA.

Just a couple of weeks shy of 22, Taveras was the Cardinal’s top prospect. I’m sure we all remember the hype that came from Taveras’s MLB debut on May 31. In his second career at bat, he hit a solo home run out to right field, then came out of the dugout for his curtain call. The sea of red gave him a standing ovation and showered him in applause. He has appeared in 11 games with the Cardinals and since then, his overall hitting percentage in 40 at bats is .189,  perhaps the reason why the Cards gave him the boot. Rookie Grichuck .136, will stay, most likely for his ability to play all three positions and because of his speed, something the Cards enjoy having in the case of needing a pinch runner.

Matheny says that they pulled Taveras on in the case that someone gets hurt, and when Adams got hurt, Taveras was the shining star the club needed to pull them out of their slump and help boost moral. The young prospect brought energy and excitement back to the stands and there is no doubt that the team noticed this as well.

I guess Taveras was too inconsistent at the plate for the Cardinals to keep around, but he’ll be back sooner or later.

 

 

 

 

Never Say Nothing

Well, here goes nothing.

These are the words that first came to my head when I decided to start this blog, but as soon as I typed them out and stared at them on the screen, I knew this was not the right way to kick this thing off. I realized that this phrase is used much too often by those who give it their all yet doubt their success, by those who don’t think anything will come by their attempt at something. Quite honestly, I’m a little tired of this phrase. We have all been guilty of selling ourselves short, but why? Where is the confidence that each of us possess? Why the negativity, the self-doubt, and most of all the hesitation to even think that each and every one of us are something great? Time out; I like a motivational speaker… but really, think about this: if you’re going to take the time and energy to pour work into something, you should expect a desirable outcome. None of this, “Oh, I wish _____,” or, “If only _____.” Stop. In order to be a success you have to start thinking of yourself as a success. That can relate to any and all aspects of life. Academics, sports, and even your professional life. So start thinking of yourself as a success, because you are capable of everything, not nothing.

In my opinion, “here goes nothing” is not the right way to start a blog. I decided to start writing one of these as a way to express the thoughts that run through my head every day and as a way to exercise the art of writing. As a public relations student, I have been told time and time again that the best thing I can be doing right now is to be writing and reading every day, so I thought this would be a good way to do so. This blog will be full of my everyday thoughts and opinions on things going on in my personal life as well as current events. I’m not sure how many people will be reading this, but I’m going to keep posting in order to get some blogging experience and hopefully the blog will lead to success in the future. Feel free to read and comment as you please, or even share. 

I can’t say I’m a fan of cliches. But sometimes they sneak into my mind and it’s hard to get them out because they just make so much sense. I apologize ahead of time if you have some sort of cliche-phobia. If I’ve learned one thing in college so far, it’s to be yourself. This is not the time to try and fit into a certain clique, or try and be a cookie-cutter copy of your friends. Dr. Seuss once said, “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” I’m a strong believer in expressing your opinion, but also being respectable of opinions different than your own. The worst thing you can do is sit back and listen to what everyone else has to say without stating your mind. Using your best judgment, know and learn when it’s the right and wrong time to state your mind. In most cases, I believe it’s better to say something than to say nothing at all. That being said, here goes something: this is the start of my first ever blog.